I’ve said this in a few different places now, but I agree: I think we’re going to see a big shift in what “devrel” means

so… thread, I guess? (1/?)

we seem to be in the “lay off devrel because there’s no attributable ROI” phase

we also seen to be in the “lay off marketing because they’re not getting the results we want” phase 

this state of affairs is temporary, because companies know (or will realize shortly) that no matter how good your product is, no one will use it unless they’re, y’know, aware it exists 

but the current downturn doesn’t surprise me, tbh. devtools companies aren’t setting up devrel OR marketing for success

there are some structural challenges with the way devrel & mktg are currently set up. lots of nuance, but I’ll attempt to capture them in tweets anyways: 

1. we’ve never really defined what devrel is

companies need to reach devs, so they hired devrel teams

but what does devrel actually DO? I haven’t seen consensus on this. job descriptions are all over the place

it’s really hard to measure when the role is so poorly defined 

2. devrel has zero budget

just about every devrel team I’ve come across has to rely on other departments for budget. they can’t act autonomously; they need marketing or product to buy into the idea and agree to allocate the funds for it

creates design by committee far too often 

3. marketing has all the budget but isn’t sure how to connect with devs

the standard marketing playbooks (webinars, etc.) don’t work as well with dev audiences because devs are highly distrustful of anything that smells like traditional marketing

but what do you do instead? 

4. devrel isn’t a job. its a department

devrel job duties are so all over the place because in reality there’s no such job as “developer relations”. it’s a department, and you have technical writers, solutions engineers, community liaisons, video producers, etc. inside that dept 

5. we’re so focused on single owner metrics that devrel self sabotages

companies get so focused on creating OKRs with single owners. devrel can’t realistically own things like top of funnel growth because too much is out of their control 

instead, devrel chooses smaller OKRs that they can own, like content views, and that’s not great because that metric doesn’t actually mean anything

hard to show the value your team adds if the only thing you own is unattributable YouTube views 

valuable OKRs like funnel and pipeline growth get pushed to marketing because devrel doesn’t have enough autonomy to truly own them

not great. this leaves devrel constantly trying to justify its existence while ALSO spending a lot of time working on metrics they don’t own 

this creates two less-than-ideal situations:

1. devrel has the best direct path to the dev community (for those who think in metrics: that’s TOFU & MQLs) — but they have no budget and no ownership over those outcomes 

2. marketing has budget & ownership but lacks the social capital to meaningfully influence devs — and the standard playbook is becoming less effective every year 

we’re left with two teams that ultimately serve the same purpose but work separately, leaving each less capable of getting big results

and that disconnection can start to resemble ineffectiveness, which can lead to leadership thinking that maybe this isn’t working at all

oh no 

my hunch is that we’ll see a collapse (happening now e.g. layoffs), but again: companies only survive if people are aware they exist, so there’ll be a new wave — but it won’t be the same as before

I have predictions (and what I would do if it was my company) 

product led growth only works if devs become aware of your product in the first place, and word-of-mouth isn’t nearly as organic as it may seem

influencer marketing only works if there’s a path for the influenced people to follow

for these strategies to work, you need a team 

my gut says the successful devtools companies of the future will build dev-led marketing teams

if we embrace the fact that devrel exists to help devs start and succeed with a product (i.e. marketing), and that marketing to devs requires significant dev knowledge, this feels like the obvious path 

thus fixes the issues I see in devrel and marketing:

  • it’s a department, and jobs will be clearly defined vs. the five-jobs-in-trench-coat approach of today

  • metrics have one owner

  • real budget in the hands of folks who know how to connect to devs because they ARE devs 

  • same-team support for functions like launches, blogs, event sponsorships

  • full picture of impact because it’s under one umbrella — attribution will always be hard, but correlation works well enough and is easier when all efforts come from one team 

  • coordinated campaigns are the only ones that REALLY work, and if there’s only one team covering all campaigns, focus is actually possible 

this thread is way too long, so I’m going to stop here. I have lots more to say about this, though, so if you’re a leader at a devtools company and you want to talk about how this could work for your company, hit me up

info@learnwithjason.dev

I love this, and I agree! if I was building a company, I’d call this team “developer experience” and have it sit with product “developer relations” would be the GTM counterpart focused on community growth, engagement, and success to get more folks aware of & trying stuff

(and I say “product” as an umbrella for both the engineering and business side of building the products, not that DX should sit with Product and not Engineering)